October 01, 2012

Back In Benghazi...

May have? Four Americans, including the Ambassador, are dead. Meanwhile, their crack team of investigative reporters drills down for the truth:

WASHINGTON — An effective response by newly trained Libyan security
guards to a small bombing outside the American diplomatic mission in
Benghazi in June may have led United States officials to underestimate
the security threat to personnel there, according to counterterrorism
and State Department officials, even as threat warnings grew in the
weeks before the recent attack that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

June was OK so September will be better? What, is the State Department staffed by ineducable Mets fans?

The Sept. 11 attack culminated several weeks of growing violence against
Western and other diplomatic posts in Benghazi. State Department
officials said they were aware of the worsening climate and took
precautions. One American official who worked in the mission said the
Americans there were able to get around with “appropriate prudence.”

One American official, who said he traded e-mails with Mr. Stevens three
days before his death, said the ambassador did not mention any
heightened security concerns. CNN, however, has reported that Mr.
Stevens did express such worries in a diary that one of the network’s
correspondents found at the ransacked mission.

Hindsight is 20/20, but still - with deteriorating security and the 9/11 anniversary, Monday morning quarterbacks have a lot to work with.

Comments

The Univision program last night was interesting. My Spanish isn't very good, but the story was laid out episodically. The massacre of a bunch of high school kids in Juarez; another massacre at a drug rehab clinic; street murders. Interviews with the families.

57 additional firearms used in specific crimes, mainly murders.

Interviews with Brian Terry's parents and the parents of Jaime Zapata, the other murdered agent.

A few mea culpas from low level ATF officials.

It was done expose' style, but if I was Mexican-American of a Mexican citizen, I would be seriously pissed off.

the WR Mead piece, about how Islamists is reorganizing itself, suggests something I've been thinking about, the interesting thing about AQIM, is what it used to be named, the Salafist Group of Combatants, that is has in common with Boko Haram, the Nigerian Taliban,
which AbdulMutallab was afilliated with
Ansar al Sharia, seems to have been formed by a merger between Bukatef's Feb 17th Brigade, and
bin Qumu's own outfit.

If one were forming a new Islamist umbrella group, this is what it would look like. labels are sometimes misleading, if they don't illustrate what the pattern is.

Maybe some people can't get bought, especially by a pre-lame duck. Plus he has a domestic audience to play it to. Also he probably figures that ValJar keeps the JEF away from anything negative, with it being in Spanish as a further fail-safe.

Interesting Post article, narciso. It seems that they have all forgotten that the forge of the latest Arab radicalism and terrorism was the anti-Sadat movement in Egypt.

Zarqawi and other AQ leaders all spent time as guests of the Egyptian government and now that new government has released the butcher of Luxor and has put the release of the blind sheikh, responsible for the 1993 bombing, at the top of their agenda. These people are symbolic of the worst trends of Salafism.

Well Lawrence Wright's piece on Zawahiri, which led to the 'Looming Tower', he went into Qutb's 'journey through Gehenna' the part about Seif al Adel, who had the first idea of using an airplane
as a weapon.

Which was why I found the Cairo speech, at the time, ironic, because Obama was denouncing Gitmo
and Abu Ghraib, which are practically spas compared to the Citadel, where Qutb and Abdel Rahman spent time.

Romney should go straight after Zero - and the MSM - re: Libya in the debate. Screw rules, format, topics. First question, turn to Zero:

"I'll answer that question in a moment. But first I have to ask the President, here and now, why has he been lying to the American people about the murder of our Ambassaddor? Our intelligence services knew almost immediately that it was a terrorist attack, and still you sent out your Secetary of State and your UN Ambassador and your press secretary to lie to all of us. Why? You owe the families of the four victims an answer
And you owe the American people an answer."

Last week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee circulated a bipartisan letter demanding answers. Sen. John Kerry, widely seen as the next secretary of state if Obama wins re-election, even put his name on the demand. The deadline on that letter: November 13, 2012.

Too bad there's not a Repub preznit and Lurch could bellow out a "Don't you know who I am" to get the info ASAP

James D.:
I too would like Romney to take it to Obama on these questions that deserve to be answered. All Bammy will say is we are still investigating.
He pushes blame away from himself even though the buck is supposed to stop with him.
However this disaster has taken a toll on his foreign policy ability of which he has none. Hillary has been reduced to a side-show and a joke. How much you want to bet that she refused to go on the Sunday shows and spout the lie so they had to go with Rice instead.

The November 13th deadline should be alluded to during the debates and the question posed to Obama-Are you and John Kerry worried about the election and is that why the date is conveniently after election day? I would love to see Oblammy answer that one.

Some fat idiot on Fox News claiming we're in the "mop up" phase of the war on terror. OK. Then, take down TSA. So long as I have to take off my shoes to get on a plane and my family can't walk down to say goodbye, we've lost.

narciso, the sad fact is that the enemy will press any attack they can. London, Madrid, the car bombings; the Camp Bastion attack are all part of their jihad to impose their extremist religion on first the Ummah and then the world.

In France and Belgium they are called pistolets not Clarice's pistola's:) In Belgium, every Sunday you line up at 0700hrs in front of the Brood en Banquet (Bakery) for the pistolets. My wife's family would get 3 different kind - Velourkas (because of the white flour dusting on top); Tigerkas (because of the different color stripings on top) and Sandwichkas (a glorified hot dog bun). And for the sweet tooth - the best damn eclairs you've ever eaten.

The best part is what you do with them at breakfast - you fill them with charcuterie (what we call cold cuts), cheese, pates and real cream butter. Ummm, ummm, ummm.

Clarice,

All those compounds, safe houses and farm were a sophisticated CIA and NSA operation to 1) track down the MANPADS, 2) Locate and eradicate AQIM and AAS as they form into different units and 3) listening post and signals intelligence to backtrack to Hezbollah, Iran and even remnants of AQ leadership in Pakistan. At least that is my belief and I'm sticking to it. Turkey consulate like ours was probably MIT (their version of our CIA). They are still NATO and our only Islamic member - so they can provide very localized HUMINT that we probably wouldn't be able to deliver.

The loss of the signal intelligence is the biggest loss in my opinion since it was probably getting good vectors on where the funding, the weapons and the direction was originating.

Btw does anybody know how Fast and Furious is being regarded in Mexico? That Univision even brought it up in an interview with the mendacious mulatto puts them head and shoulders above our domestic court-jester/quisling MFM.

Btw Tammy Bruce just played a clip from the Jets owner stating that a Romney win is more important than the Jets having a winning season. I expect Roger Goodell to take strong action on that.

That's as plausible a story as any, JIB, MIT operates through 'cutouts' like the IHIH, whose members served in the 7th Division of the Bosnian Army, as one of the leaders of the Hamas flotilla turned out to be, they are doing a similar deal on the Turkish border, running operations into Syria.

Now there are likely comparable operations out of Qatar, since they are the new big player in Islamists

Lots of pistolet recipes online . I'll try this one
The crust on these rolls isn’t as cruchy as the crust of a lean roll, such as a Mexican bolillo, but they freeze and toast well and will last on the counter for several days if stored in a loose-fitting plastic bag. The recipe may seem involved and complicated, but it you take it a step at a time it will all work out and you’ll have 35-40 rolls that you’ll be proud of.
Ingredients for Pistolet Rolls

Ingred Ounces Grams
Bread Flour 40 1135
Water 24 680
Dry Yeast 1 1/2 Tbsp 22 ml
Sugar 3 Tbsp 45 ml
Non-fat dry milk 1/2 cup 120 ml
Soft butter 4 115
Malt syrup 2 tsp 10 ml See malt discussion here Use diastatic malt if possible. If you don’t have diastatic malt, use regular malt. If you don’t have either malt, just use sugar.
Salt 1 Tbsp 15 ml
Ingredients for a Small Batch of Pistolet Rolls
Ingred Ounces Grams
HK Flour 20 570
Water 12 340
Dry Yeast 2 1/4 tsp 11 ml
Sugar 1 1/2Tbsp 22 ml
Non-fat dry milk 1/4 cup 60 ml
Soft butter 2 60
Malt syrup 1 tsp 5 ml See malt discussion here Use diastatic malt if possible. If you don’t have diastatic malt, use regular malt. If you don’t have either malt, just use sugar.
Salt 1/2 Tbsp 7 1/2 ml
1. Have some rye flour on hand for dusting.
2. Have a dowel or a broom handle ready to use for shaping.
3. Have baking sheets lined with parchment paper ready.
Method for making Pistolets
1. Place the water, yeast, sugar, non-fat dry milk, malt syrup and half the flour in the bowl of a large mixer.
2. As you mix, cut up the butter and add it a bit at a time.
3. Add the rest of the flour slowly and mix until the dough comes together. This should take 2-3 minutes.
4. Stop mixing, cover the bowl and let the dough rest for 20 minutes.
5. Uncover the dough, add the salt and mix for 6 minutes more, until the dough forms a soft, wet dough.
6. Place the dough in a very large container for fermentation. This dough will more than triple — see pictures — so give it plenty of room to expand.
7. Ferment for 4 hours.
8. Uncover the dough, fold it gently and cover it back up. Ferment for another 45 minutes.
Here, you have some decisions to take. This dough will make enough rolls to crowd most ovens. You have to decide if you want to bake in two batches or to brave it and bake them all at once. I’ve tried both methods and had good rolls either way. If you decide to make two batches, then split the dough and reserve half of it for the second batch, otherwise, just shape and bake them all.
1. Flour the work surface with the rye flour.
2. Place the dough on the counter and divide it into the number of rolls you want. I use a scale to determine the size.
3. Roll the balls under your cupped hand to seal them tightly and build surface tension. Press hard.
4. Cover the group of dough balls with waxed paper and let them rest for 20 minutes.
5. Working with one roll at a time and leaving the rest covered, dust the top with rye flour (I dip the top in a bowl of flour)
6. Press the stick down the center of the roll. Leave a strip or dough 1/4 inch / 6 mm between the two sides.
7. Lift the roll, place the thumbs in the groove and stretch gently to make the roll longer.
8. Place the rolls seam down on the floured work surface.
9. Cover with waxed paper and let rest for 30 minutes.
10. If making two batches shape the second batch while the first batch is resting.
11. Place 1 1/2 cups / 350 ml of hot water in a pan in the oven and heat the oven to 425F / 220C.
12. Place the pistolets on the baking sheet seam up.
13. If using one sheet, place it in the middle of the oven. If using two sheets, place one on the middle rack and one on the top rack.
14. Bake for 10 minutes.
15. If using one rack, turn the baking sheet around. If using two trays, switch racks and turn the baking sheets around.
16. Bake another 10 minutes.
17. Check the rolls. You may have to move the rolls around on the baking sheet or change positions of the sheets to get the rolls to bake evenly. You may even find that some are done before others. If so, remove them and continue on with the others.
18 The Pistolets should be done in 25-30 minutes, depending on your oven.
19. Remove the Pistolets to a rack and let cool.
20. If you are baking a second batch, check the water in the pan and proceed.http://artisanbreadbaking.com/bread/pistolets/

Very similar to Mrs. JiB's recipe. The key is the Malt Extract which really adds the firmness to the pistolet. She says the Chicago Rolls you get at Publix are the closest thing she has found to a true Belgian hard roll.

The article did point out the good that NCLB did to expose giving up on certain groups of people.

But to assure that no group gets left behind, NCLB leaves all children behind, treating them as an aggregate score, unified and non-individual.

As worthwhile as it might have been to indicate some were overlooked, the collectivization and automation of national education programs assures that individual students will be schooled, not educated.

Speaking of recipes, has anyone here heard of the idea that wheat (gluten) may be more of a problem now since the modern strains of the grain have unintentionally changed some factors. Apparently the modern strains have 22 chromosomes instead of 11. Gene manipulation may prove to be better than the traditional hybrid improvements.

--Gene manipulation may prove to be better than the traditional hybrid improvements.--

It always cracks me up when I pick up some product proudly stating it contains no GMO stuff when it is often some species which has been under hybridization for hundreds or thousands of years and bears little or no similarity to its wild rootstock.

MT, I read that the other day. Not sure I believe it. I think white flour was very expensive and people did eat coarser grains until recently. Also they died a lot earlier--often from starvation-- making it unlikely they had time enough to develop exotic allergies.

Kirsanow's parodies at NRO recently have been outstanding. Here's today's, and sorry for the length:

Cambridge, Mass. Celebrated historian Bertram Oxley has uncovered a memorandum from former Japanese Emperor Hirohito to Admiral Yamamoto dated December 6, 1941, showing that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was motivated by an offensive film made by Charlie Chaplin ridiculing Japanese cuisine.

“Contrary to historical accounts over the last seventy years,” Professor Oxley said in an interview today with the BBC, “What appeared to be a meticulously planned surprise attack was actually a spontaneous demonstration by moderate sushi connoisseurs in the Imperial Navy in response to a hateful and offensive movie. Thereafter, extremist elements within the Japanese military co-opted the spontaneous attack, transforming it into the overseas contingency operation sometimes referred to as ‘World War II.’”

The discovery has created a sensation in scholarly circles. “This is a remarkable find,” declared Reginald Smythe, chairman of the Progressive Historians Assocation and former Obama State Department official. “Had President Roosevelt condemned this movie — instead of uttering that infernal ‘Day of Infamy’ provocation — the war could have been avoided and millions of lives would have been saved.”

Reached at his home in Houston, former President George H. W. Bush, an aviator in the Pacific during the war, expressed skepticism. “It’s simply inconceivable that the Japanese First Air Fleet, with six aircraft carriers, could have staged a spur of the moment attack on an island thousands of nautical miles from the Japanese homeland with such stealth and precision.” Most experts dismissed Mr. Bush’s remarks, however, since it’s widely understood that World War II was primarily his son’s fault.

White House spokesman Jay Carney, asked this afternoon about the memo’s discovery stated, “Of course, hindsight’s 20-20. But one can only wonder how much pain and suffering could have been averted had FDR simply apologized to Hirohito at the outset.”

“Fortunately,” Carney continued, waving off questions from White House reporters anxious to return to questions about Mitt Romney’s grooming habits, “We’ve evolved to a more sophisticated strategy of leading from behind, so we’re unlikely to repeat the disastrous mistakes of the past.”

Just in time for the 2012 presidential elections, author Bob Gard has released an eBook that sheds light on a controversy that, over the last few years, has become a grim contest of political wills. The book offers a historically verified definition of the term "natural born citizen" as it appears in the presidential eligibility clause in Section 1 of Article II of the Constitution.

With the ponderous but eminently searchable title of "On Gard, Obama, You Are An Unconstitutional President Because You Are Not A Natural-Born Citizen, Which I Shall Prove Beyond A Reasonable Doubt," this 1,722-page volume lays out conclusive, verbatim evidence that the reader can analyze independently of the writer's own opinions. Available at Amazon.com, the eBook can be downloaded on PCs in the Microsoft Word™ 2010 “docx” file format. The 175-megabyte file requires a longer-than-average downloading time, and some readers may experience intermittent warnings of “not responding.” Author Bob Gard says, "The wait will be worth it for those who wish to follow a path back to constitutionality."

Bob Gard is the first person who pieces together this comprehensive definition of natural-born citizenship using both correlative and corroborative evidence. For more than 220 years, much of this evidence has been readily available within the public domain, but no one has yet brought the parts together into a conclusive whole. In order to define natural-born citizenship, this book traces how the law of nature, the law of nations, the British legal system and the American legal system have evolved through the course of history. "The evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Barack Hussein Obama's claim to presidential office is unconstitutional due to his violation of the Constitution’s presidential eligibility clause," Gard says."

Someone here, I forget who, said that given the known dangers, a trip by an ambassador to Benghazi would have required a sign-off by some higher-up. Is that so, and who would it have been? And where is it?

When all you have is a printing press, everything looks like a liquidity problem.

Ranger, I said at the time that was a great line and you gave me your permission to steal it. I have and will continue to do so.

It was 29-30 at this point in 2010 and 28-35 at his point in 2008. That's party affiliation among adults, not RV or LV. It's worthwhile to remember the September number contains all the convention bounce and the net gain over August was a whopping 1 point.

Many thanks for that post on Chaisson de Roland. Next to Beowolf one of my favorite epic poems of all time. But the retelling in the Paris Review is classic in itself by the successor to Sol Steinberg.

Poor Spain. Now fighting the Muslims of economics - public spending, public unions and lack of private billionaires to skin.

NK, our local radio person Vikki McKenna gave an interesting reason for Obama going to Madison Thursday: UW is the only venue he can count on filling with crazed, adoring idiots for his post debate football spike. Compare O's +3 lead in WI to Barrett's tie in May (Walker won by more than 3). O can't show weakness in WI by going north to the Fox Valley where persuadables live, he has to go to 90% Dem UW to show "momentum."

On another note, I propose we initiate the first annual Mullah of the Year Pageant. We can expect entrants from all over the Ummah and it may one day rival the Miss Universe pageant. Categories include:

Best Dressed (literally) – this could be a fashion contest much like Miss America. They could have funny hats and costumes, headgear sort of like when they do the parade of states. Even an evening wear competition.

The state department had to specifically sign off on the Steven's trip given how insecure Benghazi was. Because of the conditions, no ambassador would be allowed to go there without a specific SD waiver. I forget who said that but it was someone who would know.

jimmy-my eldest was a wrestler and picked up a MRSA infection. I move at the speed of light when there is an emergency like that. It was just below the elbow and doctor said it was just a matter of hours before it would have harmed the joint.

RickB-- The Raz and Gallup surveys do coexist well. Gallup is a good trend spotter-- hence in late 2008, self-Id'ed Dems connsistently outnumbered Repubs by 10-15 percentage points, now it's consistently 3-6 points --i.e a 6-8 point drop. That's the trend I've seen in Gallup since mid 2010 when Obamacare passed. I've concluded from that trend, that ID'ed voters alone should make this a flat election, decided by Indie voters. Raz's 45-41% generic Congressional LV poll, is also consistent with that Gallup trend. So HOW in THE hell, does Raz claim election day turnout will be D+2-4%? I don't get it. A case can be made for 0-2% Dem advantage citing Obama's 2008 magic, but +2-4%?

You're assuming his operational master was State and not the Company. I still say he was Company and he was the guy running the HUMINT and Signals G2 out of Benghazi. There is no other credible explanation for 1) the (USA) infrastructure, 2) the team who accompanied him, 3) the amount of extraordinary internal security which saved more lives than those lost.

Another reason for him being there beside being lured was that he had the Libyan Intel that there would be an attack and he wanted to secure the intelligence ops we were running including the documents and Signal intel.

"HOW in THE hell, does Raz claim election day turnout will be D+2-4%?"

NK,

That ain't what he's doing. He's saying today the safe play is D+2-4. He uses a trailing 21 day average and it will be another week before most of the convention bounce is out of his numbers. OTOH - his generic is a straight seven day average and the weekly reports reflect the convention surge and fade very accurately.

He'll be heading back towards parity shortly in the Presidential contest.

I see Fox Special Report is doing their best to help depress the right thinking voter and suppress their vote. Karl Rove tries but still gives such a tepid analysis that I wish he could meet Rick Ballard and get an education but that would mean he would have to pay attention.

JiB, I thought Rove was pretty good on the poll bias a few nights ago when he was on BOR. Agreed, he's no Rick B, but for TV talking heads it was an acceptable performance, and he more or less got it right. He said that they base the party weights on 2004 and 2008, and that there's no way the turnout patterns will look like that this time.